Talk:Karen Armstrong

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"Still, some scholars have attacked her writings for having a bias against Christianity" This form is problematic, since it inevitably invites a judgement on her, based on what may be a small minority. Can anyone indicate what is the consensus among scholars?

Or, given that there is never a consensus among scholars, can anyone expand on who the critics were (if they were themselves fundamentalists, for example), and what other scholars might have said. —195.72.173.51 18:41, 28 July 2005

Non-NPOV sentence relating to academic credentials removed.

Contents 1 Is she a historian? Or a propagandist? 1.1 Uncited criticism cut to Talk page for sourcing 1.2 Historians? 2 Feminist

[edit] Is she a historian? Or a propagandist?

It is a shame that literary critics of Armstrong tend to be chosen among those who either agree with her, or can be trusted not to know anything about the subject. She is simply NOT a historian, but a story teller with a very glaring, grating, and partisan bias. For example, read "Jerusalem: One City Three Faiths" and look up the section about the siege of 1948. At one point, she states, without attribbution, "By March, 1948m 70 Jews and 230 Arabs had died." She provides no source at all. The actual number of Jewish dead, by March 1, was roughly 1500, as reported at the time by the Palestine Post. The sum of 70 dead was surpassed by two bombings, alone -- the Jewish Agency and Ben Yehuda Street. (Eventually 4,000 Jews died in the city, or along the roads leading to it.)

She also accepts the canard that the Hadassah convoy massacre of April 13 was carried out because it was carrying "Irgun terrorists who had been wounded at Deir Yassin" -- and fails to mention that the convoy was moving under a pre-arranged flag of truce.

Armstrong mentions neither attrocity, not even the dynamiting of the Jewish Quarter. They would contaminate her pro-Arab narrative. My personal opinion, speaking as a historian gathering material for a book of my own on that siege, is that she wrote that section of the book off the top of her head. 68.5.64.178 08:08, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Uncited criticism cut to Talk page for sourcing

I've cut the following here as in need of citation. Critics consider her covertly hostile to Jews and Jewish ties to the holy land in such books as Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths. Who says this? Is there a reliable source that states that such a criticism is common or from a noteworthy source? Jkelly 23:51, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Historians?

Comment from the poster 68.5.64.178 insists that Karen Armstong is no historian, but then goes on to assert that they themself are a historian. Can we have some evidence please?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Contaldo80 (talk • contribs).

We don't normally ask for credentials from our contributors. Expertise can be demonstrated through having reliable sources at hand. Jkelly 14:30, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Isn't her standing within the 'historian' community slightly irrelevant since she is a widely used text for many basic Islam college courses? I know that she may not be considered a 'true' Islamic scholar by the community, but she is probably one of the most popular and widely read authors for the non-Muslim community. --MrBleu 01:06, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Feminist

Is she really? Widsith 15:38, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

The Gospel According to Woman---now out of print, I believe---is unquestionably a feminist book. It stands out as perhaps the least conciliatory, most aggrieved piece of writing she has yet produced. In The Spiral Staircase she backs off a bit from its vehemence. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.252.170.202 (talk)

Yes, she is. Read the Publisher's Weekly summary here, "About the Author" here (those little bios are usually put out by the publisher, which would get the info from Armstrong herself, and just google. Someone has taken this out of the article, saying it was WP:OR and not WP:NPOV. I'm putting it back in and I hope other editors here will watch for further attempts to remove it. — coelacan talk — 07:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)